‘Pay on success’ innovator ListSure has joined forces with ‘pay later’ provider Campaign Flow to form a partnership designed to change the way real estate agencies fund vendor marketing.
The ListSure and Campaign Flow partnership merges the visions of the two industry pioneers and will empower real estate agencies to be able to meet all of their vendors’ advertising funding expectations in one simple, streamlined, on-the-go digital solution.
Campaign Flow founder and CEO Justin Steer has been an active participant in the real estate industry for almost a quarter of a century and is a licensed agent and registered valuer.
He founded Campaign Flow with a vision of applying an innovative, secure and flexible approach to change the way agency principals access the finance they need to grow.
ListSure was established as a unique insurance and finance offering that allows agents to defer up to 100 per cent of listing expenses until settlement. If the property does not sell within the agreed agency period, the vendor is not required to pay the deferred amount of the marketing budget.
As a result of the partnership, agents will be able to use the intuitive Campaign Flow platform to offer their vendors the choice to “pay on success”, “pay later” or “pay now”.
This will give vendors the convenience of choosing the option that suits them and the agent will receive the funds within 24 hours without having to get involved with administration or chasing payments.
“We want to reshape the market and give an agent unrivalled payment options to overcome every financial barrier and give a vendor choice and convenience,” ListSure Co-Founder and Managing Director, Brad Melman told Elite Agent.
Mr Melman said the company recognised that a key friction point when trying to secure a listing was the cost of marketing.
“Whilst traditional pay later solutions solved part of this problem, they did not overcome vendor concerns that they would incur considerable advertising costs even if their property did not sell,” Mr Melman said.
“ListSure solved this gap by melding together two traditional products, finance and insurance, into one innovative offering that removes this stress as it delivers payment on settlement and peace of mind.”
Mr Steer said Campaign Flow understood how important property marketing campaigns were to getting the best sale result.
“But we also recognise there can be financial barriers experienced by both agents and vendors, which can slow the process.” he said.
“Historically, either the agent or the vendor would cover the marketing debt during the sale process. However, this turns the cost into a burden rather than an investment and could end up with an ineffective marketing strategy in trying to keep costs to a minimum.
“We realised that, by offering innovative payment options, we could provide a smarter way that benefits agents and vendors so they can focus on achieving the best result, and less on paying for marketing.”
Mr Melman was full of praise for the work Campaign Flow had done integrating the two services into one easy-to-use solution.
“What Justin’s built here is incredible, it’s a digital payment gateway that gives vendors the option of paying now, and it processes that straight away for the agency, funds are deposited straight in the bank account.
“There are so many agencies today that just would benefit from that streamlined piece of technology as a whole but then he’s coupled that with the pay later offering, which gives them the convenience to pay out of the proceeds of sale and in the time they need to get there, so it’s an extended period of up to six months, which gives a vendor comfort that they can get there and part of the proceeds of sale.
“Then we layer on a third piece, which is peace of mind that their only paying on success, which means in the unusual circumstance that it doesn’t sell, they’re not left with a debt. It just overcomes every objection to securing that listing and getting started.”
With the industry still emerging from COVID, Mr Melman said agencies needed cashflow solutions.
“Our mission is to make the agency more resilient, to relieve them of the pain associated with the upfronts so they can get on with listing and selling,” he said.
Mr Melman and Mr Steer said the united goal of the partnership was to satisfy vendors’ needs so they can be in a better position to win listings, and market and present properties to achieve sales, and both organisations were excited to offer a new level of support to Australia real estate agents.
